


play with fire

by itsjohndoe



Series: cry. die. repeat. [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Groundhog Day (1993) Fusion, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Fix-It, Groundhog Day, Multi, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Order 66, Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 7 Spoilers, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, cry. die. repeat. series by itsjohndoe, itsjohndoe, play with fire by itsjohndoe, the relationships won't really become relevant until later parts of the series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24581665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsjohndoe/pseuds/itsjohndoe
Summary: "Be wary, you must. Complicated and never fully understood, the force is. Dangerous to use the force for your own benefit, it is. Careful, padawan Tano. Playing with fire, you may be.” Before he can further warn her, the other voice grows louder, and drowns him out. “You know what you want. And you know what you must do. Do it! Do it now!”Mourning what once was, Ahsoka finds herself utilizing both the dark side and the light side of the force to accomplish the impressive feat of time travel. Will she be able to prevent Anakin's descent into darkness and restore balance to the force? Or will both her and her master come to share the same fate? part 1 of a multi part fic series
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi, CT-7567 | Rex/Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/CT-7567 | Rex/Anakin Skywalker
Series: cry. die. repeat. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1776778
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	play with fire

Her eyes are puffy, red and raw. Her hands match her eyes and ache just as much - if not moreso. Despite wrapping cloth around her hands as makeshift gloves, the harsh texture of her crude, homemade shovel wore through the fabric. Once through the fabric, there was nothing to stop the bark from biting, scratching and nearly consuming her hands. It’s only after her hands hurt so much that she’s practically forced to drop the shovel that she allows Rex to take over grave digging duty. Moving slowly, almost robotically, she steps back and merely watches Rex bury his brothers. They had tried to kill her, tried to kill both of them upon realizing she had removed his chip. Part of her can’t help but wonder if this is somehow her fault. If she was more experienced, if she was more strategic in her response, could she have saved more clones? Could she have saved them all? Her own guilt, her own deep sense of mourning is the only thing strong enough to keep her anger at bay. Who put the chips in the clones’ heads? Why didn’t they find the chips sooner? Part of her wants to find the mastermind, to find someone to hate but ultimately she can’t help but feel that she is just much at fault as the inventor of the chip. Someone should have noticed the chip by now. 

Actually, she corrects herself, someone did notice sooner. Anakin and Rex informed her of the passing of a Jedi, a Jedi who was killed because of a supposed malfunction of the “emotion regulator chip.” It turns out the chip isn’t just an emotion regulator. It is a thief of souls and free will, making the clones prisoners in their own bodies. Slowly lowering herself onto the ground, she sits cross legged. She hasn’t sat since she braced herself for their crash landing. Her feet scream and scream -- sitting does little to ease the ache of having spent hours on her feet. Slowly, and rather reluctantly, she closes her eyes. Part of her wants to keep a close watch Rex. She’s afraid, perhaps even borderline paranoid, that they missed someone. That a clone will come crawling out of the wreckage and exact revenge. Despite this fear there is nothing to indicate danger. There is only the sound of silence which is repeatedly interrupted due to Rex’s digging. Sand slides and rocks crunch with every swing of the shovel. They’re alone. They’re safe. For now. This mess was caused by a disturbance in the force, a sudden and overwhelming wave of darkness and despair. There’s only one way to fight darkness, there is only one path to victory and that is to achieve balance. 

_ “Why is it that Jedi only ever strive for balance?” she had asked Anakin early on in her apprenticeship. She had been young and naive then, a mere 13 years old. “Shouldn’t our goal be to eradicate darkness completely?” Anakin was happy to answer her question, flashing her a small smile before replying. “Master Yoda can explain it better than me,” he had confessed, “but in summary darkness and light are dependent on each other. Darkness is created from an absence of light and light is created from absence of darkness. You can’t have one without the other. Well, you can but the other will always struggle to return. There will always be pain, suffering and potentially war if the two aren’t in balance.”  _

_ Her memory of the conversation and Anakin’s smile which in of itself was a rare occurrence, fades to black. Somewhere in the darkness comes a voice. It is low, gravelly and unfamiliar. “I can make you stronger in a way that no Jedi can. I can teach you to control death itself.” Another voice chimes in. This time, it is the familiar, soft voice of Master Yoda. “Be wary, you must. Complicated and never fully understood, the force is. Dangerous to use the force for your own benefit, it is. Careful, padawan Tano. Playing with fire, you may be.” Before he can further warn her, the other voice grows louder, and drowns him out. “You know what you want. And you know what you must do. Do it! Do it now!” _

Opening her eyes, she pushes herself up back on her feet. She has no choice but to do this horrid act. If she is going to save herself, the clones, the other Jedi… If she is going to restore balance she has to do this. She has no choice but to use both the dark side and the light side of the force. She has no choice but to :play with fire.” She walks up behind Rex who, ever dutifully, continues to dig graves for his fellow clones. The sound of digging is interrupted by the low hum of lightsabers, one red and one blue -- it seems one of her sabers changed color in response to her use of both the light side and the dark side of the force. She stabs him, quite literally, in the back. He falls into the grave he had just dug. He does so quickly he doesn’t even get a chance to emit a gasp. It isn’t until she covers him up, throwing fistfuls of dirt on top of him -- it isn’t until tiny rocks dig under the cuts in her hands and make her hands scream does the timeline finally reset. 

She wakes up in her quarters. It’s early morning, the sun just starting to peek over the horizon like a child trying to sneakily steal a cookie from the cookie jar. Speaking of sneaking… She wearily peaks her head out of her room, and it isn’t until she witnesses Master Windu walk by, sipping a cup of coffee without so much as a clone looking at him does she finally accept the fact her leap into fire, her use of both the dark side and light side worked. Once assured she’s no immediate danger she returns to her bed and sits, staring at her hands. Her hands have healed but scars, both literal and metaphorical remain. With a heavy sigh, all she can do now is check the date and speculate her next best course of action. Should she do the exact opposite of what she would normally do? Should she only change her behavior during important events? How could she even determine if an event is important or not? It looks like she might have to save them and restore balance the hard way…

Cry. Die. Repeat.

She won’t rest until peace is achieved. 


End file.
